Field of the Invention
The disclosed technology generally relates to tires, and more particularly to a method and a smart tire system for evaluating a state of a tire and providing an alarm, and a tire configured for the method and the system.
Description of the Related Art
Recently, systems that process data such as internal air pressure, temperature, and acceleration of tires collected by a sensor module and provide various information to a driver have been developed and commonly used. Such systems are sometimes referred to as a tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS). A TPMS can be configured to measure various state parameters of a tire, such as the pressure, to provide relevant information to a user, e.g., the driver, and to raise an alarm for recommending predetermined action(s).
An apparatus for giving a warning of a tire defect has been disclosed in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2014-0067431 having the title “Apparatus for Warning of Tire Defect” (hereinafter '431 application). The apparatus disclosed in the '431 application includes a sensor unit that is composed of a plurality of sensors disposed at predetermined positions inside a tire for sensing tension in the tire, and a control unit that calculates an average and a peak of signals from the sensor unit and determines the state of a tire with reference to a table comparing an average and a peak stored in the early stage of driving with tension in a safety range of tires. While some prior art including the '431 application discloses methods of processing tension values measured by a plurality of sensors, they do not disclose methods of processing values measured by sensors of a TPMS, including pressure, acceleration and/or temperature. Further, the prior art does not disclose verifying the results of determining the states of a tire state at various points within the method. Thus, there is a need for a method of and a smart tire system, for processing values measured by a plurality of sensors of a TPMS, including pressure, acceleration and/or temperature, and for verifying the results of determining the states of a tire at various points within the method.